Dear Finn, Dear Jo
by PhoenixGrace
Summary: Before they were famous victors, Johanna Mason and Finnick Odair were modern day teens. Johanna decides to have her fate read. Everything changes. She and Finnick have to put the puzzle pieces together before it's too late. "It takes ten times longer to put yourself back together than it does to fall apart." -Finnick Odair, "Mockingjay"


**(This is a weird idea, but I hope you enjoy! Please don't kill me when I say; Annie does not exist in this story. Thanks for reading! I don't own The Hunger Games.)**

_Dear Finn,_

_ How's life? I've been really busy. Dad has only been home for three hours this whole week. Mom is going insane, but that's not new. I only go home to sleep since I hang out in the town a lot. Maybe we should meet for hot chocolate in the bakery. Their peppermint mocha is to die for, too. Have you been getting any rain? We've gotten a bunch of snow, but it's really dry. School's been terrible. Mr. Stiffler is probably planning my terrible demise. It's not my fault he drank muddy water. Any idiot could tell the difference. We've had a ton of essays since, so I guess that my demise is probably related to being buried in paper. Hahaha. Hey, have you seen Lake Anne? It's all frozen over. A few people at school told me that the woods are going on sale, but Mayor Lightwood insists on postponing until after the holidays. Even if the woods are sold, Lake Anne is still ours. We should meet there sometime. Let me know a time and I'll tell you if I can make it. See you soon._

_ Love,_

_ Johanna_

I closed the small journal and tucked it back into the small nook of the big oak tree. Cold winter winds blew through Middletown Park. Middletown Park was located between Mirabel City and Oakland. It was almost a political border. Mirabel City was famous for its seafood and Oakland for its expanse of forests. The two cities had always been crazy for each other, crazy to the point where the people of Mirabel City crossed through Middletown Park to steal a load of lumber. That was only an Oakland legend, though. Finn told me that the people of Mirabel had never done such a thing.

My watch told me that I had stayed in the park about five minutes past midnight. The moon shone through the branches of the oak, shedding a pale light on my face. I pulled on my black boots and hopped out of the tree, beginning my walk back home. It was a Sunday, my day to write. Finn and I took turns writing to each other in our journal. I wrote to Finn every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. He wrote on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. _Isn't that unfair? _Not at all, actually, not being able to write at all would be unfair.

Finn and I have been friends since he was six and I was three. We were the two strangest kids that history had ever seen. Finn was convinced that phones were controlled by a parallel universe, so we never called each other. I thought that the mail system was supervised by an alien, so we never wrote to each other. The "Journal Plan" was devised when I turned six. Finn bought (stole) a huge diary. We hid it in a hollowed oak tree in Middletown park. I taught Finn how to climb trees, so we hid it higher as we got older. It started out about seven feet above the ground. Now it's about seventeen feet above the tree. I could probably climb the whole way to the top of the tree, but Finnick hates heights. The last time I took him to the top of a tree, he nearly threw up.

Oakland came into view as soon as I rounded a corner. The bright lights were like home. I lived in a small apartment right near the city limits/. My mother was pretty unstable, given that my father was rarely around for her. I know what you're thinking- who couldn't be cured by Johanna's lovely personality? That's the best joke I've told in a while. The only people… er… person who thinks I'm tolerable is Finn.

I stepped onto the paved sidewalk of Oakland and breathed in the smell of the pine trees that were on every street corner. A few carolers passed me, singing joyfully through their scarves and coats. An old man held out his tattered old hat as I walked by him. I stopped and dropped a five dollar bill into his hat.

"Thank you, my dear, how can I ever repay you?" he asked as he held the money to his eyes, probably debating whether it was real or not. I smiled, which was pretty rare.

"I don't suppose you can see into the future, can you?" I sighed sadly. Since I was a little girl, I had always wanted to know what would happen to me. It was a silly notion that I had never been able to get rid of/. The old man smiled and motioned for me to sit down. I brushed the light dusting of flakes away from my feet and sat with him.

"Hold out your palm, dear." He instructed. I obliged. The four-year-old me squealed in delight. The old man traced the lines of my palm and muttered words to himself.

"What do you see?" I whispered. He tilted his head a bit.

"I… I see… a decent life. The one you love loves you back. I can see a little girl who loves flowers. Many hardships, joy, tears, the things one needs in life. I can see an axe. You will be chosen at age sixteen… but you will survive the fight. Those you love will leave you, all but one, who will never leave your side. I see…" the man cut himself off. I stared at him, putting two and two together.

"But… how can I be chosen at sixteen? I'm seventeen years old." I told him. He nodded slowly.

"The ax and the trident. Two very powerful weapons. When put together, they can do the impossible. A sugar cube is what you'll be offered. The Mockingjay, the baker, the one who controls all… be careful." said the old man. I was scared by his gibberish.

"What's a Mockingjay?" I asked slowly. He examined me with sad eyes.

"My dear… the odds will be in your favor. Thank you for your generosity."

"Oh, thank you, then." I smiled and stood. It took about five minutes for me to get to my apartment building. The receptionist gave me the death glare.

"It's half past midnight, Miss Mason. Where have you been?" asked Mrs. London. I threw a stick on the floor.

"I was meeting a friend." I lied. Mrs. London scowled.

"You've been meeting a friend for four days a week for eleven years now. I told myself that I would wait until you turned sixteen. I let you go a year. You turned seventeen last week, Johanna, am I correct?"

"Yeah, sure, but you're taking a fairly long vacation to Hawaii, Lillia, am I correct?" I smirked at my own wit.

"That's quite irrelevant, now if you'd go to your own apartment, that'd make my evening so much more relaxing."

Mrs. London began fidgeting with her hideous pink nails. I snorted and strolled over to the elevator, pressing 7 for the 7th floor. Only a few people lived on our floor, probably because we had the unheated, un-air-conditioned, barely hospitable, terrible apartments. Finn and I had always puzzled over how the luxury of controllable temperatures could go from the sixth floor all the way to the eighth floor. We had some to a conclusion that Mrs. London was a Plutonian and was planning on freezing me to death while I slept. Finn gave me every single one of his sweatshirts. I always wore the big, warm, grey one on the weekends.

As I closed the door to my apartment, I took off my boots. My mother had always instilled the dirty shoe rule. I shed my jacket and hat, and hung up my scarf near the door. As soon as I was in my room, I took off my sweater, shirt, and jeans, and traded them for my fuzzy black pajama pants, blue t-shirt that I had borrowed from Finn a while ago, and a deep purple bathrobe. My bed was beside the window, so I could watch the snow fall as the old man who had predicted my future shuffled around the corner, almost totally obscured by the snow.


End file.
